


Becoming

by starforged



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, gods and mortals should probably not date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9208799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: Emily Kaldwin does not wish to build a shrine for a god who is more and less, to worship on her knees and send prayers that have no answers, because she keeps it buried in her heart instead.





	

“So what will you do now?”

The Void is as it always has been, cold and moving and heavy. It’s the same with his voice, this boy-god who is not a god at all. There’s a wry twist of Emily’s lips at the question, because she has no idea, and he probably already knows that. 

And he probably already knows that he has interrupted her sleep yet again. 

“Isn’t your part in my life over?” Emily asks carefully. Her hands clasp behind her back as she faces the Outsider. The dark pits that serve as eyes still send a shiver down her spine, even now, even after all this time. They follow her as she does her slow, predatory stalk around him. 

He crosses his arms over his chest, face impassive enough except for the mild arch of his eyebrow. It conveys amusement and curiosity. “That would require me interfering. I don’t interfere.”

“Unless it suits you.”

Now a faint smile crosses his face. “You took back your kingdom. Why could I not take back mine?”

Emily stops her circling, standing behind him. She glances him over before turning away, watching a decaying whale swim past her. Sometimes, she isn’t sure what it is she should feel about him. It isn’t worship. There is no part of her body or soul that wishes to build a shrine for him to pray on her knees. Sometimes, it’s pity. Sometimes, it’s more than that, different than that. 

“I don’t know,” she says with frank honesty. “I feel as though I’m building from the ground up in a way that hasn’t been done in thousands of years. Building, bridging, watching.”

“Listening. Waiting.” His voice is in her ear now, his mouth against the outer shell. 

She didn’t even hear him move. 

“Yes.”

“Becoming.”

If she turns her head, he’ll be right there, closer to her than she’s really let anyone else get to her. Except Wyman. Wyman, who tugged her into his arms the moment he returned, who sighed into her hair and whispered that everything would be alright now. Who chalked about her stiffness to the trauma of what had happened. 

She let him believe that. 

It’s hard to tell people what she has experienced and have them fully understand it. Only Corvo did. 

Emily sighs, shoulders slumping. “Now you are being cryptic. _Becoming_.”

“That’s what I enjoy about you, Empress,” the Outsider says, still in her ear. “You don’t go for the bait when it’s dangled. You’ve learned to wait.”

And wait. And wait. Until the right moment to strike hits. 

And then she doesn’t wait. 

Then she is something else, a shadowy creature that belongs to him and to Corvo and to the Void. 

Her lips purse. Maybe that’s what he means by it. 

“I’ve learned that pushing you for answers has never gotten me, or anyone else for that matter, anywhere.” Her head turns, just a fraction, but now he’s gone.

Now he’s next to her, hand close enough that she can feel cool skin brushing against her own.

“I want to push,” Emily admits.

“It’s in your nature to do so.”

“And what nature is that, exactly?”

He turns to stare at her. She wants him to say _human nature_ and leave it that, because to answer any more deeply is to admit he knows her far too well. As many secrets of his that she has, tucked deep in her heart, he has hers, too. There is a sense of connection that goes beyond the print on her hand, his magic swirling in her veins as rightfully as the blood of the Kaldwins, of the Attanos. 

“You were born to shoulder an empire. I would be disappointed if you didn’t try to throw around a little weight here and there to demand something from me, now that I have stopped demanding from you.”

Something about the way he says that both squeezes at her heart and drops into her stomach. “We needed each other,” she tells him. “It’s not a demand if I was willing to accept it.”

At first, for vengeance. 

And later, for justice.

For Corvo and her mother’s lingering spirit and for Delilah, whom she held as much sympathy for as she did hatred.

For _him_ , who didn’t even have the choice. 

Back in the real world, in her bed, lies another man with a warmer body and a warmer heart. He does not understand what it is to rule. He does not understand the wisp and shadow she has become. 

She is an empress, and it’s in her nature to demand. So her fingertips graze across his jaw, over impossible cheekbones. He lets her, face still as impassive as it always has been. But there’s a softness in the dark that is his eyes that she’s not sure a god is possible of.

A boy, though, a boy could have that look. 

Her palm rests against his cheek. It’s the hand with his mark on it. 

He brings his hand to her cheek, calm and cool. She leans into the touch. 

“I will be watching you, Emily Kaldwin.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

* * *

She’s awake before she understands that she is, and the body next to her sighs and moves, a hand on her bare hip. It’s warmer than she wants it to be. In the warm light of the early hours of Dunwall filtering through her window, she stares at symbol on her skin.

Emily Kaldwin does not wish to build a shrine for a god who is more and less, to worship on her knees and send prayers that have no answers, because she keeps it buried in her heart instead. 


End file.
